Silverchair

Press

13-12-1997

Festival Hall - Melbourne, Australia

All
photos by JENNA O'BRIEN

Set List:
Slave (with Israel's Son intro)
Roses

Daniel:
"Thank you. When you're a bearded lady everything is
fine. That's what we've come to realise through the next guitarist.
Her name is... Jackie Love, and she's in love, and she has
a goatee, because she's bearded. She's a freak."

Abuse
Me
Pure Massacre
Daniel: "Thank you. Thank you very much, Melbourne. You
guys rock harder than every other place that we've travelled,
easily. We've only played one other place in Victoria, and
that was... Cairns. Cairns was also the other Victorian rock
city. [EDITOR'S NOTE: Cairns is in far north Queensland, completely
at the other end of Australia.] Who wants a pick? All right.
That was for that guy there, give it to him. That guy, the
guy with his hands in the air. You ready?"

Nobody
Came
Daniel: "Thanks. Uh, yeah, right, good. Very emotional.
It's an emotional uplift. This is the time of the show where
we all think about sexual organs. We don't do anything, we
just think about it. So are you ready to rock or are you going
to just sit there and sip orange juice? Well? Rock? Orange
juice? All right, it's time for a vote. Who wants orange juice?
[Crowd cheers.] Who wants to rock? [Crowd cheers louder.]
All right, orange juice wins.

The
Door
Daniel: "We haven't played this song in a while. I don't
think we've played it in Melbourne but we might have, I can't
remember. So this is for people who suck. All the people who
suck. Suck, suck, suck. [starts Learn To Hate and quickly
stops] Nope, that's fucked. I'll just wait for a guitar that's
in tune, that's cool. Thanks, Bailey. Ah, sorry, we're very
unprofessional. You can see KISS for half the price. [strums
the second guitar] Ah, fuck. Bailey, this is fucked, dude.
[strums again] All right, fuck it. You can handle out of tune
because it's so... [strums again] No, Bailey, it's fucked.
[Chris and Ben start a funky jam, then someone throws some
food on stage.] The Bush Tucker Man wouldn't eat that shit.
Oh man, who threw that? That tastes like crap! [someone throws
a bra on stage and Daniel puts it around his chest] I don't
know how a bra works. All I know is they hold boobs in position.
So, yeah, I'll just tie it in a reef knot, which I learned
at Scouts. I was in Scouts. Do you know in Scouts I was a
seconder? Which is second to a sixer? I've always been second
best, and that's what my problem is in life. I can never get
to the motherfucking top!"

Learn
To Hate
Daniel: "Bailey, this guitar's also out of tune. Now
it's fuckin' stuck. It's here to haunt me forever. I should
never have became a seconder and I'd be able to undo the knot.
Sorry for our unprofessionalism, but that's just the way we
are, so... we're unpro-fucking-fessional. [someone throws
something else on stage] That's for Chris. All right. You
feel bad when this happens. But that's the price to pay when
you're so fucking punk."

No
Association
Spawn
Freak
Encore:

Daniel:
"Thanks. This is for Pete Walton, he runs our Internet
site, so he's pretty goddam motherfuckin' smart. Also, we're
playing at the Palace tomorrow night, if you wanna come. We're
playing with Magic Dirt, again.

From
midday, die-hard silverchair fans both male and female gathered
eagerly to catch a glimpse of the Newcastle trio. After a
long wait the band's Tarago arrived at 4:30. The "freaks"
were hurried inside by security. This was enough to make the
wait worthwhile. The crowd which had grown to approximately
50 people by this time, hung around the back entrance buzzing,
full of excitement and anticipation of the show ahead. The
mostly teenage crowd traded stories about the band with others,
while listening to the 'chair soundcheck with a couple of
favourites, Learn To Hate and Abuse Me.

At 6:30
the doors opened and the crowd slowly made their way in to
hear Melbourne's up-and-coming Something For Kate. I was quite
content to talk to fans waiting for Daniel and Chris to return
from their dinner trip. Something For Kate took the stage
just after 7:00 which I listened to from outside. When Something
for Kate finished I made my way inside. I was lucky enough
to go backstage and meet silverchair! All the guys were very
approachable and easy to talk to when away from crowds of
hysterical girls! I was able to have a chat with each of the
guys about their respective instruments which was really cool!
Not to mention the rest of the silverchair crew. Then the
guys had to go and prepare for the show.

I
caught the second half of Magic Dirt's set which included
old favourites and new material from the soon-to-be-released
album which was typical of the band -- thumping drum beats,
distortion and plenty of ear wrenching feedback! The band
put on a good performance which was well received by the crowd,
shown by the size of the growing mosh pit. By the time the
band left the stage the crowd were well and truly ready for
the band they were there to see.

Within
five minutes Magic Dirt's equipment was packed up and off
stage, then the curtains came down revealing the traditional
silverchair setup. Once all the roadies were off stage the
hall went black and then sounds of explosions and lights flashing
from all over the hall. With hysterical fans screaming at
the top of their lungs, the 'chair took the stage with the
pulsation of Chris' bass pumping out the introduction to Israel's
Son, which then cleverly changed to Slave. The audience went
wild.

Slave
was followed up with another bass and drums assault, this
time in the form of Roses. The band then dropped the tempo
a bit and went into songs such as Abuse Me, Cemetery, Suicidal
Dream, Tomorrow and Nobody Came before winding up again in
the second half of the set with Learn To Hate, No Association,
Spawn, Freak and then came the encore -- the full version
of Israel's Son which Daniel kindly dedicated to the one only
Mr. Chairpage, Pete Walton!

The
final song came as a surprise for most with the band doing
a version of the Freak remix, which worked really well! Daniel
climbed all over the stage and acted like a complete maniac.
Johns gave the crowd a demonstration of his ability to play
the drums which was impressive.

Overall,
the show was amazing, with the electricity generated between
the band and the audience. Daniel's vocals were full and demonstrated
a great range, while his guitar playing was excellent. Ben
and Chris were unblemished in the rhythm section pounding
out the band's haunting tunes. The 'chair gave a genuine performance
full of energy and really got the crowd involved showing that
there is plenty of skill and showmanship, putting on a spectacular
performance. Well done guys!

"Dirty deeds!"
Scott screamed in his desperate, angry tones. While all of
Johns' prepubescent fans may not have been familiar with the
classic heavy-metal tune that inspired a generation, Johns
certainly was. This is his kind of music. It's where he is
coming from, he said.

"I think music's
only good if it's threatening," the singer said.

With their most
recent album, 1997's Freak Show, the group certainly incorporated
some of the raw sounds they've grown up on. Raw rock was also
in evidence at the Dec. 13 gig. But so was another side of
the group. Cemetery, for instance, was performed by Johns
alone, his thin, backlit profile and bleached-out face adding
to the lonesome poignancy of lines such as "I may be
late, always seem to get the wrong date."

But mostly, the
group rocked. Their current Australian single, The Door, was
a highlight, its sitar-like riff almost overwhelmed by drummer
Ben Gillies' bludgeoning backbeat. Next in line, Learn To
Hate turned into a ferocious, metal rave-up courtesy of Johns'
psychotic mantra, "Take the time to learn to hate/ Come
and join the mass debate."

To see the silverchair
singer onstage these days is to get a glimpse of the public
rites of passage the 18-year-old is undergoing. One moment
he's mumbling a monologue relating to his born-loser status
("I was only a seconder at scouts. I mean, imagine that,
I was even coming second in scouts, for Christ's sake!").
Then, before you know it, he's flipping plectrums into the
crowd, or stopping to strap on a bra thrown from the mosh
pit ("How do you put these things on? Don't know much
about them -- I know they're supposed to hold your boobs up!").

There was a time,
back in 1994, just as the band emerged as highly touted winners
of a music show's talent quest, when it seemed they were in
danger of polarizing nearly everyone in their future demographic.

How would pre-teen
girls attracted by singer Johns' blue-eyed, blond good- looks
deal with the bone-crushing riffery of their songs? How seriously
would Gen Xers take a band who was likely to fill a hall with
at least as many of the aforementioned girls as alienated
grunge-puppies? And what were hard-rock aficionados to make
of three, scrawny school kids who professed a deep appreciation
of Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin in their stumbling, monosyllabic
interviews?

Those questions
are now consigned to the cut-price bins of music history.
The band's recent performance at Festival Hall -- two-thirds
of the way through the Newcastle trio's first full-fledged
national tour -- was a tour de force of hard and heavy rock
songs, delivered with enough panache to keep everyone happy.
It was a clear statement by a group of young men who have
decided to take their music to the next level.

Recent high school
graduates, Johns, Gillies (sporting an impressive three-inch
mohawk) and bassist Chris Joannou display a friendly, somewhat
guarded attitude. "We were the first to admit to being
derivative," Johns said before the show. "I mean,
we did sound like all that Seattle stuff at the time. It was
what we were listening to, what we liked -- and we didn't
give a fuck. I think we've found our own sound now -- people
can hear it and know it's us!"

Even older material
such as Israel's Son and Pure Massacre (from the band's 1994
debut album, frogstomp) seem fresher and more urgent when
performed live these days, propelled along by Joannou's edgy,
growling bass lines. Johns, who only a year ago was the most
diffident of frontmen, now prowls the stage with growing confidence,
his long blond hair fashioned into a mane of spiky dreadlocks,
looking sort of like a younger, leaner Johnny Lydon. The resemblance
was even more marked when the singer spat out a few Lydon-esque
snarls during No Association.

Johns confided
his frustration at those critics who refuse to accept that
such dark emotions could ring true for one so young: "The
people who say stuff like that are just dumb, old fucks who
can't remember what it's like to be young," said Johns.
"Just because you're a teenager doesn't mean you don't
have those emotions. Those people are just jaded, silly old
cocks!"

It would be wrong
to glibly dismiss Freak Show -- both the album and the tour
-- as a band of talented teens playing with academic notions
of alienation or disenfranchisement. To whatever extent they're
able, silverchair are writing from their own lives -- and
the band, especially Johns, is well aware of the subversive
power of rock 'n' roll. "Music's fucked if it's about
things that are easy to listen to and easy to contemplate,"
he said. "I like writing about things that are socially
incorrect, that people don't want to hear about, that you
might get in trouble for."

And apparently
so does his audience.

For a show-closer
at silverchair's recent gig, a thumping version of Freak saw
virtually the entire hall erupt into a singalong. If the song
lyric expresses a personal angst, the sight and sound of 3,500
yelling "body and soul, I'm a freak" transformed
it into something perversely communal.

You don't have
to spend much time guessing about the sort of audience silverchair
at the Festival Hall might attract, and sure enough, the crowd
appeared to fall exclusively into three categories -- under-18's,
parents and me. The youngsters were a well-behaved bunch,
though, offering few open displays of the knife fighting and
paint sniffing that I had been led to expect from reading
the Herald Sun too often.

They were certainly
polite enough to the support bands, neither of whom leap to
mind as obvious favourites for this age bracket. Then again,
both rock hard enough to give those down the front something
to thrash their heads to, even if some of the subtleties would
have gone over them. Magic Dirt in particular earned their
keep, alternating sultry moodiness and ballistic caterwauling
in perfectly even measures.

But there was little
mistaking who they had come to see and, for all their "we
only hope the album does well on the alternative chart"
self-effacement, the 'chair went to impressive lengths to
put on a show. They arrived on stage to a rave's worth of
whizzy noises and flashing lights, and got down to business
by giving it an impressively meaty shellacking with Slave
and Roses before filling out the sound nicely with a guest
guitarist on Abuse Me. That song inspired the first crowd
singalong of the evening, and it was hard not to be impressed
by the energy level they generated on the choruses.

So far, so good,
which was as I had hoped -- I had always been the first to
jump to the defence of the 'chair from the barbs they inevitably
suffer from those who find picking nits about their silly
lyrics and obvious influences cooler than admiring their remarkable
talent. But just as they are becoming mature enough to deliver
music that can stand up to greater scrutiny, so they are deserving
of less benefit of the doubt than before. And the show did
start dragging its heels a bit at around this point. For the
most part, the problem was song selection -- Pure Massacre
and Suicidal Dream are painfully callow efforts of a type
that they should be looking back on with embarrasment by now,
and Daniel's solo spot of Cemetery dragged its heels, with
the missing string section doing the song no favours at all.

The flat spots
made his occasional displays of petulance all the harder to
bear. I'm aware that good manners aren't the attitude is part
of the package, but Johns' sour demeanor, finger gestures
to the audience and temper tandrum about out-of-tune guitars
took wilful unprofessionalism a bit too far.

Still, it's possible
to forgive them a good deal when they're on form, as they
unmistakeably were on Tomorrow and The Door. And when they
encored with the big surprise of the evening, the remix version
of Freak, we had a vivid reminder of what all the fuss was
about. Still firing on however many cylinders people this
age have, the newly mohawked Ben Gillies and Chris Joannou
attacked their instruments like complete maniacs while Daniel
Johns went fully into Linda Blair mode as a backing tape did
the rest of the work.

It was certainly
enough to get them across the line on points, but silverchair
are capable of giving you a much harder time of getting off
the canvas. Next time, maybe.

By CHERYL

Our day began at
around 2 p.m., my best friend, Bec, and I were to meet Pete
Walton (before the silverchair gig) at Rydges Hotel in Melbourne.
The meeting went fine, despite being treated like DIRT by
the staff at the hotel, who thought we were just teenyboppers
dying to catch a glimpse of that fabulous trio from Newcastle
known as silverchair.

After meeting Pete,
we went up to the hotel room where we stayed for about five
minutes, before returning to the hotel lobby. Whilst in the
lobby, John Watson ("the cool one") walked in and
he and Pete started talking. Bec and I just stood there.

All of a sudden,
Pete looked behind me and says "Hi, Chris!" I turn
around, and who else but Chris Joannou is standing about one
metre away from me. He smiled and said hi, and I somehow managed
to stammer, "Hi, how are ya?" to which he replied,
"Good, thanks." He then came and stood beside me.
I was totally dumbfounded; it was over too quick. We made
small talk about... the weather (can you believe that?) I
didn't even ask him for a photo, which was rather silly of
me. On parting, I looked at Chris and said, "Make sure
you give us a good gig tonight," and he grinned and said,
"Yeah, we will." Well, that made my day! Now on
to the actual concert.

The doors opened
at around 6:30 p.m. The first band to play was a local Melbourne
band called Something For Kate. Their set was awesome, they
really rocked and their mosh was REALLY intense. They definitely
warmed the crowd up. They played for about half a hour. Next
up was Geelong's Magic Dirt. Magic Dirt are a band you either
love or hate. I would fall under the second category. I have
seen them live once before, and thought they were bad then.
Now I KNOW they are bad. They really weren't very good at
all, but I suppose I should give them some credit, and I will
say their drummer is pretty good, and also, they were being
very thoughtful and asking the venue staff to get the "moshers"
some water because they were all hot. Following Magic Dirt's
rather disappointing performance was silverchair. After a
HUGE wait, the stage lit up and the crowd went wild. The sound
of machine guns (I think) and other things were going off,
and then silverchair appeared.

On stage, the guys
have started becoming really active -- they really get in
to their music now, whereas last year when I saw them, they
just stood on stage and didn't really do much at all. Also,
Daniel talks to the crowd a lot more than he used to; this
just shows how much more comfortable the guys have become
with performing live to such a huge audience. Daniel constantly
prompted the crowd to "Jump!" and they all did,
too. And more times than not, you could just hear the whole
crowd singing along with Daniel, over all of the noise and
everything. I have never before seen the whole floor of Festival
Hall moshing before this gig, either, and the song where the
floor/pit went the craziest was probably The Door.

Cemetery was definitely
the "lighter" song. A whole stack of people pulled
out their lighters during this song, and just swayed them
in the air with the music. Before The Door was played, Daniel
was on stage saying, "OK, those who wanna sit there and
sip orange juice, you should get up and rock. What do you
wanna do? Sip orange juice or rock? OK, let's vote on it --
those who want to sip orange juice say aye!" About a
quarter of the crowd yelled "Aye!" Daniel then said,
"And those who want to rock, say aye!" and EVERYONE
said "Aye!"

silverchair dedicated
Learn To Hate "to all of those people who SUCK!"
Daniel said "suck" about five times. He started
to play, but his guitar was out of tune so he started saying,
"That's Bailey's fault... nah, it'll be ok, nah, nah,
Bailey, this is fucked. It's fucked!" Then "Nah,
you people can just have it out of tune." He again started
to play then said, "Nah, Bailey, this is fucked."
This was the BEST version of Learn To Hate I have EVER heard.

The lyric from
No Association which goes like this -- "Wish I could
be like you / you say you care, but do you?" was changed
to "Wish I could fuck like you / you say you care, well,
fuck you!" which was pretty cool. During one of the songs,
Daniel wore a bra around his waist. He said he tied it with
a knot he learned in Scouts. He said in Scouts he was a seconder,
which was second to a sixer, whatever that means. He also
said that was second best, he is always second best, and that
he never gets to "the motherfucking top!" Daniel
told the crowd that we rock harder than any other place in
Victoria, ever, easily. He also said that they have only ever
played one other place in Victoria before, and that was Cairns!
[EDITOR'S NOTE: See above editor's note!] They did play in
Torquay earlier in the year though, so I don't know what he
was talking about.

Near the end of
the show, before silverchair played Israel's Son, they dedicated
it to Pete Walton. Pete specifically asked me NOT to include
"that stupid guy they dedicated that song to" in
my report. Well, sorry Pete, but I just had to!

The gig ended after
silverchair's Freak remix which was really awesome, with Daniel
climbing all over the stage, yelling into the mic. It was
a really great show, much better than last year's. Best of
luck to the guys, I hope they have a good break over the next
few months, they've earned it!

By CRYSTAL

Whoa! As far as
I'm concerned, it can't get any better than what I saw last
night! My friend and I arrived at Festival Hall right at 6:30
and it only took us 30 minutes to get in. By the time Something
For Kate started playing, a mosh pit had already erupted and
the crowd was really enthusiastic throughout all of Something
For Kate's performance. They were a great band and did not
disappoint anyone. Then Magic Dirt came on, and the mosh pit
shrank and most of the crowd just stood and watched. I decided
to go and stock up on merchandise and ended up buying two
of their Summer Freak Show Tour shirts, one of the silverchair
jerseys and the tour book. Anyway, Magic Dirt weren't as good
as I thought they would be, and at one point the lead singer
told everyone that it sucked because we weren't into it more.
Oh, well -- we just wanted silverchair!

Finally at about
9:00, the lights dimmed and there was a really cool sound
and light intro and then the guys came on stage. I seriously
had to plug my ears because of the massive amounts of screams.
After all the teenies calmed down and the first riffs of Slave
(with the Israel's Son intro) were played, everyone formed
one big mosh pit pit and went mental.

Just some of the
highlights of the show: in Slave Daniel would wave his middle
finger around at the crowd and the crowd would copy. At one
point someone threw a bra at the stage and Daniel picked it
up and put it on for a little while which I thought was really
funny! Also, at the beginning of Spawn Daniel's guitar was
stuffed, so he was apologizing for being "unprofessional."
I think everyone was amazed when they pulled out the drums
for the techno Freak remix and Ben started jamming on them.
I went and sat on a tall rail and could see everything that
was happening on the stage. Ben looked like he was having
fun, and Daniel gave the word "freak" a whole new
meaning.

During the remix,
Daniel climbed on to the right of the stage on top of blocks
and was moaning and groaning into the mic and at one point
was shaking his hips -- it was hilarious!! Then he moved to
the left side of the stage and once again climbed the blocks.
Then everyone cheered when Daniel started playing Ben's drums,
and no one wanted to leave when they finished. Everyone cheered
and chanted, "We want more! We want more!" even
after silverchair had left for good.

From a personal
view, I had a great time in the mosh pit except for the fact
that I'm so short and couldn't see the stage. So, I crowdsurfed
about 10 times so that I could actually see them and they
probably could see me. I ended up getting thrown over the
rails so many times and the security guards had to escort
me out. I'd have to push my way back through the crowd to
get back to the middle of the mosh pit each time which sucked.
People were crowdsurfing right and left! It was great because
the whole mosh pit was mostly made up of huge, sweaty guys
and it was really easy for them to throw me in the air because
I was so little compared to everyone else.

Overall, I'd have
to say last night was probably the best concert I have been
to and will ever go to. Daniel, Ben, and Chris are very talented
musicians and performers. They knew just how to get the crowd
into it and involved. I have no doubt that their next album
will be a success and I will definitely be at their next concert
in Melbourne. All I can say is that it's not going to get
any better than that!

By KESHE
Editor, Krush! magazine

On Saturday, the
13th of December, I went to see silverchair live in concert
at Festival Hall. I have to say- IT ABSOLUTELY ROCKED! Of
the bands I've seen live, and the bands I’ve seen on
TV, these guys just kick their asses and leave 'em for dead.
They are just so spontaneous, so amazing and most of all,
so moshable!

We arrive at around
7 p.m. From the outside, Festival Hall doesn't look like much.
A big building, painted brightly with not many windows but
heaps of doors. People ranging from five to adult gathered
around in groups outside. Security guards and those people
who check your tickets standing at the gates, ready to make
sure you were able to enter. More people to check your bags
for drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes and make you chuck out bottles
of water which are prohibited from the venue. The people are
all wearing bright yellow coats. They stand at the door looking
bored until someone comes along. They check our tickets, bags
and pockets before telling us to move on.

Once inside, our
eyes have to become accustomed to the darkness. Loud music
plays from the stage, people are walking here and there looking
for their seats. Those already seated chat with their friends,
check their watches and cast an occasional glance towards
the stage where the local band Something For Kate are playing.
They are extremely good, but everyone is waiting for silverchair.

To each side of
the stage they are selling merchandise. T-shirts and sweaters
all bearing the name silverchair hang high above the counter.
Next to this they are selling drinks for $2.00 per cup.

We find out seats
and meet up with some friends who had been there since 6:30
p.m. From our seats which (from our view) were just in front
and to the left of the stage we had an excellent view. According
to where they normally stand, we would have the perfect view
of Daniel, a really good view of Chris and be able to catch
glimpses of Ben through his drum kit. Well, when they came
out that is. From the inside, Festival Hall is a good size.
Big enough to house hordes of people but small and intimate
enough to feel like you were actually there. The moshpit is
directly in front of the stage (as they are) and there are
rows of seats on either side. Overhanging the moshpit there
is a balcony which is also filled with rows of seats. The
drummer from Something For Kate bangs the hell out of his
drum kits. The singer throws a word in here and there between
songs, but they rarely communicate with the audience. They
don't need to -- the moshers are already getting into it while
others stand around the sides. The se ats are filling up gradually.

Eventually Something
For Kate finishes up. "Don't hyperventilate before silverchair
come on," they warn and they leave the stage. The audience
cheers them half-heartedly. We all love them, but tonight
silverchair is the only band that matters. They play music
while they set up the stage for the other support act, Magic
Dirt.

When Magic Dirt
comes on they deliver their performance with a fresh burst
of energy. This time the female lead singer, Adalita, talks
a lot to the audience. "Who wants some water?" she
asks the moshers before throwing a bottle of water into the
pit. Hopefully someone caught it and no-one was knocked down
by the flying missile.

People are getting
hotter, thirstier and more restless. They often get up to
go to look at the merchandise, those with money purchasing
with great enthusiasm while those with no money gaze wistfully
at the slogans emblazoned across the front of their friends’
new article of clothing. The people at the drinks stand are
collecting money, pouring, giving change at double the speed
of the McDonald’s crew.

Up on the stage
they are playing to the best of their ability, the lead singer
making dry jokes while the bassist bends over his instrument,
drummer killing those drum skins. In the moshpit the audience
sometimes mosh, sometimes just stand around. They, too, are
waiting for the featured band.

Just before Magic
Dirt finish off their set the lead singer jumps into the mosh
and crowdsurfs for a while.

When Magic Dirt
finish up at around 9 p.m., the legendary Led Zeppelin song
Whole Lotta Love blares out over the speakers. The stage darkens,
light is cast over the audience who are waiting in eager anticipation
to catch the first glance of Daniel, Ben and Chris.

We watch the stage
being set up, different instruments being brought on. It takes
about 40 minutes, but it seems like years. When the audience
lights finally go down, everyone knows it’s time. There
are sound effects and lighting effects to make the guys’
entry.

Everyone stands
up and yells like crazy when they see three figures moving
onto the flashing stage. No-one can see them properly yet,
the lights are flashing so much it could make a person blind.
The lights stop flashing to reveal silverchair standing where
we had presumed they would stand. Daniel with his guitar,
Chris with his bass and Ben behind the drum kit. They say
nothing; they need no introduction. A spot light focuses on
Chris while we hear him bang out a few riffs from Israel's
Son to get everyone in the mood before the light switches
to Daniel -- they launch seamlessly into Slave.

The intro chords
boom out of the amps. The impressive lighting (which is sequenced
for most songs) changes colour and patterns are cast here
and there; sliding from the stage to the audience to the roof
and back to the stage. The lights flash along with the beat
changing colour from red to pink to green to blue and everything
in between. Ben bangs away at his drum kit like there’s
no tomorrow, arm muscles flexing and sweat glistening on his
body. Chris bends over his bass and rocks backwards and forwards
on each foot, headbanging to the beat, bass so low it nearly
scrapes the stage floor. Daniel stands at his mike, crooning
the words he’s sung so often before, strumming his guitar.
Whenever he does not have to sing or play he launches full
on into back breaking thrash moves. His blonde dreadlocks
fly out in all directions from his head, reflecting the light
that is flashing on, and off, and on, and off.

Slave finishes
and Ben’s heavy drumbeats indicates the next song is
Roses. The live version of Roses sounds pretty much the same
as the recorded version, except a whole lot more loud, heavy
and forceful.

After Roses Daniel
introduces Abuse Me. "Thank you." he starts. "When
you're a bearded lady everything is fine. That's what we've
come to realise through the next guitarist. Her name is...
Jackie Love, and she's in love, and she has a goatee, because
she's bearded. She's a freak."Abuse Me is very familiar
and rather slow, so the mosh mainly stands still. Daniel senses
this and yells at them. “Every motherfucker jump”
he prompts the mosh, and not surprisingly, they all comply
and jump hard when the song gets to the ‘throw the sailors
overboard’ bit.

They go on to play
Pure Massacre, and this proves to be a popular one with the
audience. This song, well matured since its early days, goes
totally off as soon as Daniel yells “motherfucking jump!”
Daniel practices what he preaches, jumping up and down with
his guitar still slung over his skinny shoulders. The light
reflects off the shiny instrument.

"Thank you.
Thank you very much, Melbourne. You guys rock harder than
every other place that we've travelled, easily." Of course,
this sends a whole lot of teenybopper young girls into a tirade
of screaming.

"We've only
played one other place in Victoria," he continues. "And
that was... Cairns. Cairns was also the other Victorian rock
city." (Cairns is NOT in Victoria, in fact it is on the
other side of Australia! Guess who wasn't paying attention
during geography class?!) "Who wants a pick?" asks
Daniel after this. "All right," he says after a
response and he throws a few guitar picks into the mosh. A
short pause and he directs the people on the floor to give
it to some person. “That was for that guy there. Give
it to him.” He says. Pause. “That guy, the one
with his hands in the air.” Pause.

That dispute resolved,
Daniel goes on. "You ready?" he asks while Ben and
Chris leave the stage and a spotlight is focused at the centre
of the front of the stage. Daniel walks slowly to the middle
of the stage, clutching his guitar, and we know that the next
song has to be Cemetery. The crowd falls silent. It is an
unwritten law for audiences to be quiet during this song,
it is different, and very special. Even teenybopper fans seem
to realize this.

He starts to sing.
His solitary figure in the middle of the lonely stage seems
surreally small. Daniel sings Cemetery which such a passion
and sincerity it is almost hard to describe. His voice strains
to the soft strumming of the guitar, and during the short
periods where he only has to play he backs away from the mike.

A couple of people
in the area to the right of the stage pull out their cigarette
lighters and wave them in the air. A few seconds later more
people do the same. People in the balcony notice and they,
too, pull out their lighters. It catches on, with people in
our section taking out their lighters and swaying them to
the song. We look around; the darkened audience is lit up
in places by tiny spots of light waving to and fro. It is
a very moving salute to the young man standing on the stage.
It demonstrates how much we respect and honour him. Cemetery
was definitely the lighter song.

Once the final
chords of Cemetery echo throughout the dark, silent building
it takes everyone a second or two to recover. Ben and Chris
rejoin Daniel on the stage and the leading man takes up his
original position. Just a second into the song Suicidal Dream
and the teenybopper fans are at it (screaming) again.

Next on the set
list is Tomorrow, although the guys have expressed many times
before their dislike for this song. They are obviously sick
of playing it… Daniel, trying to make the song more
interesting for himself, toys around with the words.

“You say
that money, isn’t everything…” he sings.
“But I’d like to see you live on dog shit…”

“You think
you can keep on going living like a slut…” The
audience breaks into a fit of giggles at his dry humour. (**Note:
Some people think it was shlong, or swan, or slob. I personally
think it was slut.) “Ooh babe but I strongly doubt it.”

After Tomorrow
a guy comes out to change the mike (for what reason is beyond
me). "That's Gouldie," explains Daniel matter-of-factly.
"He changes the microphones and masturbates frequently.
That's his job occupation, masturbator. He's a masturba-tour
manager. Umm, this song's about child abuse. Ready?"
Nobody Came was the song, the haunting melodies floating across
to us. Long, drawn out, distorted notes reached us over the
screams of the girls.

After Nobody Came
Daniel thanks the audience and blabbers on about it being
emotional. "It's an emotional uplift. This is the time
of the show where we all think about sexual organs."
The girls scream. "We don't do anything, we just think
about it." Daniel chuckles to himelf. When the screams
die down, it is clear that he is getting pissed off with those
in the audience who aren't getting into it. "So are you
ready to rock or are you going to just sit there and sip orange
juice?" He waits for response. "Well? Rock? Orange
juice? All right, it's time for a vote. Who wants... orange
juice?" The smart asses in the audience all yell. "Who
wants to ROCK?!" The crowd goes wild at this point.

"Orange juice
wins!" Daniel jokes and the guys launch straight into
the much loved The Door. Everyone gets right into this. After
you hear The Door live the recorded version is never quite
up to scratch. The live version of this song is absolutely
amazing and the mosh gets really pumped.

"We haven't
played this song in a while." Daniel announces. "I
don't think we've played it in Melbourne but we might have,
I can't remember. So this is for people who suck.. All the
people who suck.. Suck, suck, suck!" They proceed to
play Learn To Hate. They play the first few chords of the
song and don’t get any further before Daniel stops and
looks at his guitar.

“Nope, this
is fucked.” He says to the rather confused audience.
“I'll just wait for a guitar that's in tune, that's
cool.” A roadie hands him a new guitar. "Thanks,
Bailey." he acknowledges the roadie. "Ah, sorry,
we're very unprofessional. You can see KISS for half the price."
He plays another chord on the new guitar before stopping again.
“Ah, fuck Bailey, this is fucked, dude.” He directs
his last short outburst towards a guy backstage and there
is a pause while he receives a response. He contemplates the
situation for a few seconds before strumming the guitar again
and turning to the audience.

“All right,
fuck it. You can handle out of tune because it's so...”
He announces. The whole band starts to play. They barely get
past the first riff before Daniel stops again. He looks towards
the guy backstage again. “No, Bailey, it's fucked.”
He continues on, explaining to the audience that he was going
to go offstage for a little while and that Ben and Chris would
be doing their own thing while he was gone. He walks offstage
to get a new guitar and Ben and Chris start to play an impromptu
song on their own. Ben lays down heavy drumbeats while Chris
plays improvised notes. They go on jamming even when Daniel
returns to the stage. Daniel walks around with his lead, getting
everything together and setting up the new guitar before he
takes up his proper position again. Ben and Chris cease ad
libbing. Some one had thrown some food onto the stage. Daniel
sees this as an oppurtunity to exercise his sense of humour.

Another object
sails onto the stage, thrown by someone in the mosh. It lands
just beside Daniel's mike.

He picks it up.
It is some lustful teenybopper's bra. "I don't know how
a bra works." He tells us. "All I know is they hold
boobs in position." The audience breaks into laughter.
He ties it around his chest. “So, yeah I’ll tie
it in a reef knot, which I learnt at scouts” He informs
us. “I was in scouts. Do you know in scouts I was a
seconder? Which is second from a 6er. I've always been second
best, and that's what my problem is in life.” His voice
grows louder. “I can never get to the motherfucking
TOP!!"

No one stops to
remind Daniel that Tomorrow stayed at Number 1 on the ARIA
charts for six weeks. Oh, well.

They all start
to play Learn To Hate. Daniel’s short break offstage
before this song proved highly beneficial, as most of the
times when he sings Learn To Hate his voice cracks during
the verse due to the chorus in which he has to yell. Tonight
this doesn’t seem to be a problem, and it is a near-perfect
performance of the song. The only flaw is when Daniel forgets
the second verse, only to realize later in the song when he
manages to cram in the forgotten verse. He also repeats himself
in a couple of lines. Nobody minds, the song rocks anyway.

"Bailey, this
guitar's also out of tune. Now it's fuckin' stuck. It's here
to haunt me forever." sighs Daniel after Learn To Hate.
"I should never have became a seconder and I'd be able
to undo the knot." He pulls the bra off from around his
chest and throws it to one side. "Sorry for our unprofessionalism,
but that's just the way we are, so... we're unpro-fucking-fessional!"
Something else gets thrown up onstage. "That's for Chris.
All right. You feel bad when this happens. But that's the
price to pay when you're so fucking punk." He says before
embarking on No Association.

No Association
is a popular song… And once again Daniel messes around
with the words. “Wish I could, fuck like you.”
He drones. “You seem to care, well fuck you!!”
No Association ends with heaviness.

The next song they
play is Spawn. The crowd loves this song, though I suspect
many do not recognise it (it is a lot heavier live than it
is recorded as the recorded version was remixed by British
techno outfit Vitro).

When Spawn ends
the 12 heaters from the Freak video light up. They had been
arranged around the stage and remained dormant until the familiar
beginning riff of Freak hit us. This is, by far, the song
that has the most audience interaction for the whole night.
The mosh becomes really intense, and the rest of the seated
(not any more!) audience gets right into it, standing up,
cheering, and singing along. The guys stop playing at one
point and they let the audience (who are singing louder than
Daniel himself) take over. Daniel signs according to the words.
“BODY AND SOUL, I’M A FREAK, I’M A FREAK”
sings the audience. They resume playing for the instrumental
part.

The last note of
Freak lingers for awhile, hanging over us as the three guys
walk casually offstage. The stage lights go down, but as the
house lights are still dimmed we know that the concert hasn’t
ended. According to Head researcher, Bianca, the guys walked
offstage at this point to ‘pack all their shit up so
they could leave straight away.’ The crowd waits patiently,
waves of murmurs wash around us. Occasionally someone starts
up a chant of ‘We want more! We want more!’ or
‘silverchair! silverchair! silverchair!’ After
a wait of what seemed like hours, the lights go up again and
silverchair reappear on the stage. They slide behind their
instruments and begin to play.

The quiet beginning
bass riff from Israel’s Son creep towards us over the
screaming and cheering. (I personally think this is the best
song on Frogstomp).. Daniel’s voice drones into the
microphone. The song goes on and the audience loves it, they
sing along. “I AM I AM ISRAEL’S SON” yells
Daniel into his mike. “ISRAEL’S SON I AM!”
“PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR! PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR!”
The most amazing thing happens at this moment. Daniel sticks
both arms straight up (my friend who was in the mosh and right
in front of Daniel says he looks like a Zombie when he does
this) for about two seconds.. And so does literally everyone
in the audience. They do exactly what he says in the song…
“I AM I AM ISRAEL’S SON! ISRAEL’S SON I
AM! PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR! PUT YOU HANDS IN THE AIR!”
In the moshpit the sea of heads turns into a sea of hands.
Thousands of people, kids and adults alike, all with their
arms raised as high as they can in the air above their heads,
all with eyes on the blonde guy on the stage. When the song
draws nearer to the end, Daniel starts to growl the last part
of Israel's Son instead of singing it. "Put your fucking
hands in the aaaiiiiirrrrr." He didn't need to remind
us. Everyone already had their 'fucking' hands in the air.
That amazing song over, the stage workies come out onstage
carrying Ben’s (electronic) drum kit and tom toms- much
to the confusion of the intrigued audience. They place it
in front of his normal drum kit, centre stage. Ben steps down
from his normal drum kit and sits behind these drums. Chris
stays where he is. Daniel puts down his guitar and, well,
he goes mental. They start to play, those who are better acquainted
with this remix will know it as Remix for us Rejects.

With a backing
tape doing most of the work, Daniel is freed from the heavy
guitar which is usually hanging down from his shoulders. He
is everywhere, one moment next to Chris, next moment running
around Ben, next moment down the front of the stage. He moans
and groans into the mike which he has released from the clamp,
spit running down his chin, distorting his voice and twisting
it until he sounds like some kind of mutant having his nails
pulled out. The only time he ever sings normally is during
the chorus. The crowd, too, gets hyped up and starts going
a bit wacko. “Freeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaakkkkkkkkk”
he groans.

“Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaakkkkkkkkkkkkkk!!”
He is tripping and jerking all over the stage in a maniacal
manner. It is amazing.
“Body and soul, I’m a freak, I’m a freak!!”
he sings before he picks up a pair of Ben’s drum sticks
and starts to bash away at one of the drums. Everyone cheers-
they watch Daniel’s body lurch as he plunges his whole
bodyweight forward to bash the drums, his head bent with strong
determination and his arms raising high above his head before
crashing down with sheer force on the cymbal. He does this
for about a minute, Chris watching amused as his friend goes
spack onstage. Eventually he drops the drum sticks and races
off in another direction to see what else the stage left for
him to do. He parades to the PA system on the right (from
our view) of the stage, still clutching the mike. He drags
himself up on top of the speaker stack, when he is finally
up there he stands up and starts to sing (not sing, groan)
again. He moans and shakes his hips, sending the girls crazy.
That Daniel, he really knows how to stir the crowd up! He
doesn’t stay there for long. Soon he jumps off the stack
and races to the other side of the stage, pulls himself up
on top of the PA system again. He kneels and lets a glob of
spit out of his mouth, groans, stands up and groans again.
He points to the audience as he sings in his distorted voice.
Ben and Chris are still going berko on their instruments,
but all the attention at the moment is focused on Daniel.
He jumps up and down on the speakers, kneels and reaches towards
the audience, stands up and raises his arms above his head,
stomps around and groans.

“Frrrrreeeeaaaakkkkkkkkkk!”
Two people manage to clamber onto the stage. Security catches
them before they get too far and chucks them out of the venue.
Daniel jumps off the speaker stack, again, and once again
goes on to run around the stage while moaning into his mike.
Eventually he stops to stand still momentarily before he is
off again. He throws himself on the stage floor and rolls
and wriths around for a few seconds before jumping up again.
“Body and soul, I’m a freak, I’m a freak”
he yells at the audience. “Body and soul, SUCK MY DICK,
SUCK MY DICK!!!!” The crowd cheered him on as he went
on. “Frrrrreeeaaaaaaakkkkkk!” The song finishes
off (to our disappointment) and the guys, all sweaty, leave
the stage. For good this time, as indicated by the house light
going up and the stage lights dimming. Even after people realize
in shock horror that the concert was finally over (it seemed
to fly past) they still chant for silverchair to return. “We
want more! We want more! We want more!” Everyone stomps
their feet on the ground. Everyone is still real psyched.

The chants start
to die away and the audience merge into one big mass pushing
their way out of the doors. Outside, traffic comes to a standstill
as the swarms of concert go-ers spill out onto the roads,
blocking cars from going and risking becoming victims of road
rage. The fresh air and dark blanket of the night brings the
reality that it is finally over.

All in all, I’d
say that the concert was the best I’ve ever seen. I
hadn’t been to a silverchair gig before, but I had seen
them on video, and they definitely bettered my expectations
of their live shows. They have shown us that their touring
experiences in the States have improved their show so much!

Ben, as he always
has, attacked his drum kit with an enthusiasm unsurpassed
by any other live band I’ve seen. I really am in awe
of Ben, throughout the 15 song set of about an hour and twenty
minutes he never lost the rhythm once. He just kept on pounding
out those LOUD, HARD, and HEAVY drumbeats. He had sweat glistening
on his body, but he still gave it his all and pounded as hard
as he could on that drum kit. (Quick fact: Ben breaks an average
of 16-18 drum sticks per gig!) He, Daniel and Chris are in
perfect time with each other. Amazing! Ben didn’t bash
up his drums or ram his head through the kick drum skin like
he usually does- which was a bit disappointing. It would have
probably ruined his new, three inch high, mohawk.

They really have
developed as performers. Back when they started out Daniel
would just stand at his mike, strumming his guitar, his eyes
darting to and fro scanning the audience with a certain degree
of uneasiness. Chris would stand there too, stock still, long
hair covering his face as he bent his head over in concentration.
Now, Daniel talks to the audience, making dry, and often really
weird jokes throughout their set. Chris jerks to the beat
all of the time and often there are small expressions he makes
towards Daniel that go unnoticed by most of the audience.
Sometimes he laughs at Daniel’s jokes or gives Daniel
Looks (once Daniel made a joke that Daniel, Chris and Ben
had sex amongst each other and Chris threw a sideward glance
at him that simply meant Don’t). It’s nice to
see how much these guys have grown in confidence, and you
can tell that they have fun, still, onstage. It’s hard
to believe that the scared-looking blonde kid we saw two years
ago has developed into a young man who has no hesitation in
lying on top of a speaker stack, one leg hanging down, making
orgasm noises (yes, believe it or not, he did that at another
gig)…

They really have
their own thing going on up there, and I think all of the
critics that say they are clones of Pearl Jam or whatever
can now be deemed out of date. silverchair have got their
own sound happening, and it ROCKS!